$1 million recipe?

Wichita Falls woman hopes baklava pays off in bake-off

Torin Halsey/Times Record News
Carrie Hudkins spreads out a mixture of chopped cranberries, pecans, sugar, orange zest and cinnamon to make another batch of her Cranberry Orange Baklava Pinwheels. Hudkins and her recipe were chosen to compete in the 45th Pillsbury Bake-Off in Orlando, Florida March 26. She has a 1 in 100 chance to win the $1 million grand prize.

PHOTOS BY Torin Halsey/Times Record News
Carrie Hudkins grates some orange zest for her recipe for Cranberry Orange Baklava Pinwheels, which earned her the chance to compete March 26 in the 45th Pillsbury Bake-Off in Orlando. The competition will be televised, and the winner will be announced March 27 on the "Martha Stewart Show." ABOVE: A fresh batch of Hudkins' Cranberry Orange Baklava Pinwheels.

A fresh batch of Carrie Hudkins' Cranberry Orange Baklava Pinwheels. The easy breakfast recipe gives her the chance at the $1 million grand prize in the 45th Pillsbury Bake-Off March 26 in Orlando, Florida.

There's just a little more than a week till the 2012 Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest on March 26 in Orlando, and Pillsbury has posted on its website everything you need to bake along with Wichita Falls contestant Carrie Hudkins.

You can even see the naming of the $1 million grand prize winner when it is announced the next day on "The Martha Stewart Show."

Hudkins learned last fall that her recipe entry was chosen from thousands of recipes to be one of the 100 finalists in the annual contest. But at first, she wasn't allowed to reveal more than the name and ingredients of the recipe.

But that's all changed, now that the contest is just days away.

Pillsbury published her recipe entry, Cranberry Orange Baklava Pinwheels, on its website in the Breakfast and Brunch category, complete with all the ingredients and directions so you can try it at home.

Sixteen users already have rated Hudkins' recipe with a composite four stars out of a possible five.

"My niece tested it the other day and put a review on it," Hudkins said Friday. "I think they want people to start testing them."

She's noticed that her recipe has been mentioned in newspaper articles about the contest, since it is one of the recipes that incorporates all of the contest trends, such as bite-sized servings, the growing popularity of ethnic dishes, sweeter breakfast options and smaller portions.

Hudkins invented the baklava adaptation as an easier version of a Christmas baklava favorite. She's practiced the recipe 50 times and figures she's made about 1,000 pinwheels.

"It's pretty consistent now," she said of her skill at whipping up the recipe. "I finally have it memorized. I felt like I had to go into (the contest) knowing that I had done everything I could to try to win."

At this point, she has a 1 in 100 chance of winning $1 million.

But first, her recipe will have to win its category — earning her a $5,000 cash prize and $3,000 in General Electric appliances. That will qualify her recipe for winning the $1 million grand prize.

Friends who found the recipe online and tried it have told her how easy it is.

"It's not nearly as complicated as the traditional baklava, but there are very similar flavors," she said.

Hudkins already feels like a winner, with a free microwave from Pillsbury — still boxed — sitting in her garage, a new apron and contest cookbook, along with airplane tickets to Orlando, all gifts from Pillsbury for participating.

This year's contest features 95 women and five men, ages 27 to 79. A Pillsbury blog about the contest told finalists that they should thank the company's summer interns for choosing their recipes, since it was the interns who sifted through the original thousands of recipes to narrow entries to about 600, which were later narrowed still further to 100.

When she learned she was a contest finalist in September, the March contest seemed a long way off.

"I've been thinking about this so long," she said. "I'm ready to just go try."

Wichitans can tune into the announcement of the grand prize winner at 9 a.m. March 27 on the Hallmark Channel's "Martha Stewart Show" — channel 185 if you have satellite, channel 76 if you have Time Warner Cable.